I don’t think Maine sportsmen have ever been given a reasonable explanation as to why the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) takes several months in order to count from one to somewhere in the twenty-thousands. We live in an age of instant information and yet the MDIFW still takes several months to count deer, moose and bears harvested in each of their hunting seasons.

One excuse has been that if the counters “hurried” their harvest number calculations, there would be errors to correct. We recently saw in the Bangor Daily News that MDFIW had to revise their deer harvest numbers because at least on tagging station was just getting around to reporting deer registration information. NICE!

Many other states with deer hunting seasons, release harvest information on a weekly basis and some, within hours of the end of the season, give an estimated total deer kill, followed a short time later by an “official” count. Using caveman tactics of reporting, it took Maine over 4 months last year to report deer harvest numbers and then nearly one year later, they still had to make corrections due to failed prompt reporting by tagging stations.